Even If It's Dried, You Should Give A Fig

People who have savored a fresh fig know this fruit as a sweet, voluptuous delight, a fair description of whose luscious charms would strain the expressive limits of a family newspaper.

For most of us, though, a fig is but a fig, as comely as an old eraser. Wrinkled and dry, it shows hardly a trace of its juicy youth. We might care for it or not, but we're unlikely to care more than a fig.

Wahida Karmally, the director of nutrition at the Irving Center for Clinical Research at Columbia University, sees this humble fruit rather differently. She's not gaga about it, but she did warm up as she checked it out. "It's a food that's very low in fat - it's mainly carbohydrates - but it does give you a lot of other nutrients," she says. She mentions fiber, magnesium, calcium, potassium, even a little protein and zinc. "So many people are taking laxatives, but if they had more fiber in their diet ... they wouldn't have such a need for laxatives."

"To me," she continues, "a fig is not just a fruit but it's a great substitute when a person wants to eat something that's sweet," she says. "So it can replace candy. ... It's definitely not empty calories," which is why fig bars are considered as wholesome a cookie as you can eat.

She also suggests, "You can add it to fish, to chicken and to salads. ... You can puree figs with vinegar to make a dressing which is nonfat and very low in sodium."

Ron Klamm, who manages the California Fig Advisory Board, explained why most figs you meet are dried (after informing us that "all dried figs produced in the United States are produced in California''). "One of the downfalls of the fresh fig [is) a very limited shelf life; it is very, very perishable," he says. That accounts for the generally frumpy quality of fresh figs at the supermarket.

But he had some news for people who have been ignoring dried figs for years: They're moister than they used to be, at least the California ones are. Ripe figs start at about 75 percent water, and as they dry they shrivel down to 15 percent water. "Traditionally, they were drier," Klamm says, as a lot of imported figs still are. Through the long unrefrigerated centuries, thorough drying was a good policy against spoilage, but "the modern consumer in America prefers a more palatable, moister product," Klamm says. His state's figs are boosted with hot water and steam to between 22 and 28 percent water.

They may be gnarled and past their prime, but figs have plenty of sweetness still to offer. As the old song says, "It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear, That the fervor and faith of a love can be known, To which time will but make thee more dear."